


Someone to Stay

by carrieonfighting



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Existentialism, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Paranoia, Slow Burn, angst-ish, drunk fluff, gratuitous cursing, no ghosts or bois were harmed in the making of this, ryan is Struggling, ryan says fuck a LOT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-04 19:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13371399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrieonfighting/pseuds/carrieonfighting
Summary: Ryan can't sleep at night, and Shane is an enigma





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written fanfiction before, so decided I would jump right in there with RPF...  
> Title is from the song by Vancouver Sleep Clinic, which I listened to a lot whilst writing this. I am not from round here, so apologies for any briticisms that snuck their way in there.  
> Because literally no-one asked, I've made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/ftzbt450wcnurjvpcarmcle1d/playlist/5A5a8T0R24yJ30YnQRyENp) of the songs that I listened to a lot whilst writing this. That's the kind of thing I do instead of studying.

Ryan couldn’t say he’d ever properly considered moving out of California before. The West Coast was always the place he had firmly wanted to be; family, friends, a career he loved.

But it was 3am on the Friday at the start of the week he would later look back on as “That Week” and he was really seriously considering moving to a remote island in the Pacific and staying there.

That week’s episode of Unsolved was gone, edited to within an inch of its life and up on the internet waiting to be viewed…but he’d retained that sense of panic in his gut that you got close to a deadline, lying awake in his apartment for hours staring at the ceiling until he’d given in and switched the television back on. 

The uneasiness roiling in his gut refused to abate, and he wondered if it was more than just residual fear from the last filming. Something in the building creaked, and his entire body jerked. 

He watched the next morning dawn, and arrived at the office exhausted. He threw his bag down and slumped in his chair, slowly turning to look at Shane.

“You look like death warmed up today,” His friend commented, punctuating his sentence with a sip of coffee in that way that drove him mad. His hair never seemed to fall in exactly the same way every time Ryan saw him. He had his shirtsleeves pushed up to reveal those lean, pale forearms. 

“Couldn’t sleep last night,” Ryan grunted in response, tempted to shove his headphones on and ignore Shane for the day. When it came down to it, Shane was his best friend, but God he was tough to deal with on a regular basis. He was a man of few words, off-camera, but he had a gift for making those words as annoying and pointed as possible. 

His head ached. The headphones went on, and Ryan barely looked at another human being for the rest of the day.

Of course, he couldn’t get away with it, and Shane caught up to him just as he was getting ready to leave. He caught him by the elbow and left his hand there for just a second, before running it through his already-wild hair. 

“Hey, are you okay? You’ve been really…quiet today.”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Ryan replied, scrubbing a hand through his hair and across his face. “I just – didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Is your apartment haunted now?” Ryan didn’t even need to look to know the smile quirked on Shane’s face, ready and waiting for him to take the bait.

“Maybe,” Ryan said, not willing to give him any satisfaction today. “You’ve said it before. It’s likely someone died in just about every place you’ve been. Someone probably died in my apartment at some point.”

“So, your ghost is someone – someone who lived in LA? Sounds unbearable.”

“Shut up, Mr Midwest. You fucking live here too.” Shane finally cracked and let out a deep belly laugh, a flash of white teeth and crinkling eyes. 

“You’re probably being haunted by an advertising executive. Or like a, a PR specialist.” He chuckled, and Ryan couldn’t help but laugh along – Shane’s laugh was infectious. “What are your plans for tonight, Bergara?” He swivelled in his chair and put his hands behind his head in a way that would have annoyed Ryan if he’d been more awake. 

“Go home and veg out, see if I can sleep any better.” Ryan shrugged on his coat and started shovelling his stuff into his bag, really not caring how much it got bumped around. 

“What about you, big guy?”

“Nothing quite as exciting,” Shane admitted wryly. “My brother’s coming into town tomorrow, so I’ve got some deep cleaning to do.”

They left together, Ryan heading to his car and Shane loping down the street to his apartment. Ryan often wondered if it would be more convenient to live within walking distance of work, or if he’d just hate walking. He hated traffic too, though. Life really seemed to suck these days. 

His apartment had a bad vibe to it. There really wasn’t any other way for him to describe it. It seemed just a little too large, too empty; the shadows stretched a little longer than he remembered them doing before. 

He could feel that unease forming in his gut again, and he hurried to head it off by microwaving a big bag of popcorn and throwing the cheesiest comedy he could find on. It didn’t work – by the time eleven o’clock rolled around, his hands were shaking, and the back of his neck was tingling (unpleasantly). What the fuck was wrong with him? 

Could his apartment actually be haunted?

The more he thought about it, the more he was sure he could feel a malevolent presence somewhere nearby, the way he often got when filming on location – the chills up his spine, the prickling at the back of his neck. 

Shane joked about it entirely too often for Ryan’s sanity – “hey, if there are any ghosts out there…feel free to follow my friend home to LA. He loves ghosts. Love one for a roommate.” – but the possibility had never truly entered his head before. Well, it had, but he'd always dismissed it, because that was a surefire way to totally lose his marbles. It was already a struggle dealing with the haunted places whilst being able to drive away forever and never think about them again.

The last place they’d filmed on location had been a house a few hours drive north of the city – nothing particularly wild, compared to what they generally did. It hadn’t even been a demon. But Ryan had still played his part, had yelled at rustlings and jumped at creaks and relished the fear tingling in his spine. Now he came to think on it, his apartment hadn’t seemed quite the same once they’d gotten back. 

He hauled his laptop out and stared at Google for a good five minutes before typing “am I haunted” into the bar, and then deleting it. He was being ridiculous. His apartment just seemed a little spooky. _You spend too much time reading about ghosts,_ a voice that sounded uncannily like Shane said. _You’re developing some kind of…paranoid delusion._

Shut up, Shane, Ryan thought, and typed “cleansing rituals” into the search engine. Immediately a list of phony psychics, mediums, and spiritualists popped up. He grimaced, added “DIY” to his search, and got down to business. 

He was woken up the next day by his phone buzzing. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa, with his laptop dead on his lap. Shane was calling. 

“Dude, are you still alive? You’re so late.”

“What…oh shit.” Ryan finally noticed the sunlight spilling round his blinds. “Fuck. Uhhhh-”

“It’s cool, I’ll cover for you. Get here quickly though.” When it came down to it, Shane was his best friend. 

“Woah,” Shane spun his seat around to watch Ryan as he crashed into the office, a beanie covering his greasy hair and grey bags under his eyes. “What happened to you?”

“Weird – weird night.” Ryan muttered. He threw himself into his chair, with knees that felt like they’d been worn away to nothing. “I overslept. What did you tell the guys upstairs?”

“You had a plumbing problem,” Shane smirked, but it quickly faded. “Are you sure you’re okay, bud?”

“I don’t – I can’t tell you,” Ryan said, staring pointedly at his computer screen as it booted up. The yellow post-it notes everywhere seemed to be glaring at him. _Fuck,_ he had a sore head. 

“Ryan, you can tell me anything,” Shane was genuinely concerned now, and it made Ryan really angry, because he knew it was going to dissolve the moment he let slip what was really causing his sleep issues. 

“You’re going to laugh.” He said, still avoiding looking at Shane. 

“Okay,” Shane shuffled his chair closer and planted his hands on the table. “I promise that whatever you tell me right now, I will take it more seriously than I have ever taken anything. More seriously than I take hotdogs. More seriously than I take Unsolved.”

“You don’t take Unsolved seriously at all,” Ryan quirked his lips ironically. His face itched – he hadn’t had time to shave that morning. 

“I do! I take it so seriously you can’t even - appreciate how seriously I take it!” Shane cried. 

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Ryan laughed, finally turning to face his friend. “Okay, fine, so…you know how you joked the other day about how my, uh…my apartment might be haunted.”

“Yeah…” He could see the conclusion dawning in Shane’s eyes.

“I think my apartment might be haunted.” To his credit, Shane did not laugh. His lips twitched a little, his eyes may have bulged, but he did not laugh.

“What…what gives you this impression?” He asked, very carefully neutral. 

“You’re such a fucking-” Ryan sighed and clenched his fists on the desk, willing the anger (and nerves) away. “Ever since we got back from San Diego, I’ve just, I can feel this malevolent presence there, you know?”

“Ryan. I can’t say I do know.”

“You’re laughing at me,” Ryan threw his hands in the air and turned away from him. “I fucking knew this would happen.”

“I’m not, I’m not, I swear,” Shane protested. “Your – your ghost feelings are valid. I respect them.”

“Valid?!” Ryan stared at the older man, and suddenly they both broke down laughing. 

“You’re valid, Ryan,” Shane giggled, and Ryan swatted at him.

“You promised to take me seriously.”

“You’re laughing too!” Shane said, still snickering quietly. 

“It’s stupid, I’m just being stupid, I don’t need you to tell me that,” Ryan muttered, and put on his best Shane voice (still not very good); “’Oh, Ryan, better get the holy water out, a demon’s finally followed you home, I knew this was coming-” Were they really so deep in each other’s asses that he was imitating his best friend imitating him?

“Okay, okay,” Shane interrupted his tirade. “Look, even if I think you’re a ridiculous human being, you’re still suffering, and that’s…valid.”

“Will you stop saying fucking valid-”

“I can’t think of another word!”

The two had lapsed back into their familiar, easy bickering, and it eased the tension in Ryan’s shoulders a little bit. If there were two things he was good at, it was overthinking things and arguing with Shane. God, he was such a mess. 

Ryan’s nerves had grown the closer the six o’ clock it got, until at 5:55 the back of his neck was sweating at the thought of having to go back to that apartment and sit there alone for the entire weekend. He’d casually interrogated everyone who’d swung by his desk about their plans, and none of them were down to spend any time with him. Shane was picking his brother up from the airport. He was royally fucked. 

When six hit, Shane sighed and started packing his things away. Ryan’s hands were shaking, and he pointedly did not look at his taller friend. 

“I’ll see you Monday, bud. Don’t forget to set an alarm this time,” Shane said, irritatingly chipper. 

“Fuck off, Shane,” Ryan muttered. Shane paused. 

“Are you going to be okay tonight?” He swung back around to look at Ryan. “With this whole ghost thing?”

“I’ll be fine,” Ryan insisted, hiding his shaking hands under the desk. Shane shrugged, and left him in the office, but he put a hand out and squeezed his shoulder comfortingly (which Ryan enjoyed, even if he wouldn’t admit to anyone). Eventually, he was the only one there, and he couldn’t find any more excuses to stay there.

The door to his apartment seemed to loom over him as he walked down the hallway, and it took him two goes to get the key in the lock. Finally, it swung open, and he stood on the threshold staring in. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for; things moved, smashed plates, blood running down the walls, he didn’t fucking know. His shirt was starting to stick to his back. His apartment looked exactly the same as it had when he left it this morning. 

_There’s nothing here,_ Shane’s voice insisted in his mind. _Come on, Ryan, you’re practically hallucinating at this point._

Shut up Shane, he thought grimly, and took that first step into the living room. It was fine. There was nothing here. He’d been imagining it. It would be irrational to just leave now and move away and never set foot in the city again-

Something in the kitchen creaked and his entire body did a weird kind of shimmy which resulted in him tripping and stumbling into the couch. Trembling, he peered over the back of the couch and through the door into the kitchen, half expecting to see an actual real-life demon staring back – but there was nothing. His apartment was empty. 

_I think you’re a ridiculous human being._ He could see Shane smirking at him. He sighed, scrubbing his hands over his aching eyes and reached for the remote. Time to veg again. Maybe he would finally get some decent sleep (that would be a fucking miracle). 

He dozed in the faint light from the television, and from around the drawn blinds. The noise of the game playing on the screen faded in and out of his awareness, until he was jolted awake by a thudding at the door. 

Heart racing, he approached the door like it was a wild animal – _a bear?_ Shut up Shane – and looked out the peephole. 

There was nothing there.

“Oh, fuck,” He breathed, reeling backwards and clutching at his head. This was too fucking much, he didn’t – he threw the door open and looked out into the hallway, up and down, nobody about – what was he fucking doing? He slammed the door again and stumbled away, scrabbling in his jeans for his phone, and before he even knew what he was doing he was dialling Shane. 

Ringing, ringing, and then-

“…Ryan?” His friend rasped into the phone. There was the sound of clinking glasses and talking, loud music in the background. 

“Shane, hi,” Ryan gabbled into the phone. “So, you, uh, you know how you asked me if I would be okay tonight, and I said I would be?”

“Eh…yeah? Ryan, what’s going on?” 

“I’m not okay. There’s something here with me. I swear.” He was very aware that he was breathing wildly into the phone like – like a fucking serial killer. 

“Okay, Ryan.” Shane’s voice was shifting into that half-soothing, half-condescending tone he took when he was about to tell him he was talking nonsense, and Ryan was having none of it. 

“Please, Shane, I’m losing my fucking mind here.” 

“Shit. I don’t know, man, what do you want me to do?”

“God,” Ryan flopped backwards on his couch, suddenly having to hold back tears. Why was he so pathetic all the time? “I don’t fucking know dude, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have phoned-”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Shane interrupted. “Look, I’m – I’m out with my brother, why don’t you come join us? I’ll get you an Uber.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Ryan protested.

“Too late! Uber booked! See you soon!” Now that he’d calmed down a little bit, he noticed that Shane’s speech was distinctly slurred. The call cut off, and he was left staring at the ceiling with his phone pressed to his ear like an idiot. What the fuck was he doing. 

He spent the entire taxi ride trying to slow his racing heartbeat, but it wasn’t until he arrived at the bar and saw Shane that he was even remotely successful. He leapt to his feet, unfolding his stick limbs like – like some kind of alien, and threw his arms around Ryan. His hair looked like he’d been rolling around on the floor.

“The ghoul boys are reunited!” He crowed, pressing Ryan’s face into his chest hard enough to hurt. 

“I only just saw you at work,” Ryan mumbled into Shane’s shirt. He felt better already; he wasn’t secure enough in his masculinity to admit it, but Shane’s hugs were grounding. When it came down to it, Shane was his best friend. 

“It was too long, my guy,” Shane pushed away, but left his hands resting on Ryan’s shoulders as his dark eyes wandered over his person, for just a little longer than could be called casual. Then he ruffled Ryan’s hair and slung an arm over his shoulder, turning him back to where his older brother sat. 

And after that, the rest of night was…blurry. They drank. They laughed. Ryan didn’t think about ghosts, or demons, or his apartment, or even the way Shane’s eyes softened with concern whenever he looked at him. He just talked and laughed with his best friend. 

At one point, pretty deep into his fourth beer, Shane turned to Ryan and said “you know, if we ever did come across a ghost that was trying to kill us, I’d try and protect you.”

Ryan was shaken, but he snorted. “What are you gonna do, wave your weirdly long arms at him until he gets spooked?” He giggled at the unintended pun. 

“I feel like…you’re not appreciating the sentiment of what I just told you,” Shane said, staring contemplatively into the bottom of his glass. 

“Hey, if a ghost tried to kill us I would probably just shit myself, so…throwing yourself at him like a – a homicidal daddy-long-legs is gonna be an, an improvement on that,” Ryan said, probably slurring, and patted Shane on the shoulder. “Hey, if you were abducted by aliens I’d be pretty fucking sad about it.”

“Yeah, because you’d be busy telling everyone I was abducted, and nobody would believe you,” Shane said, snickering wildly. 

“Yeah, but I’d miss you.” Ryan insisted. 

“You’d just be jealous that it wasn’t you,” Shane mumbled, draining his glass and slamming it down on the table. “I’d miss you too, bud.”

“We’re…we’re such a couple of saps!” Ryan snorted, suddenly unable to stop giggling. Shane reached out and leaned on Ryan's knee, his large hand enough to span his entire thigh, and they giggled together. 

He came to the next morning face-down on an unfamiliar couch, his contacts dried out and his hair suffering from not being washed in two days. He groaned, as he recognised the ache in his head as a hangover - probably a solid six out of ten on the Bergara scale. Shane called it the Lightweight Scale, even though he was so skinny alcohol seemed to spread to every vestige of his body in seconds. 

Was this Shane’s apartment? He raised his head and winced at the sunlight coming from behind drawn curtains. It wasn’t his apartment – relief – and it wasn’t like he’d seen anyone else last night. He’d never actually set foot in Shane’s home, though, despite knowing the guy for two years. 

There was a tall glass of water sat on a table next to him, with a note on it. _Finn and I gone to fetch breakfast. Drink up. See you later – Shane._ He downed the water, and checked his phone, squinting in the harsh white light. There were several blurry selfies on his Snapchat story, and a video of Shane yelling about Bourbon Street with his own maniacal giggling in the background. Fuck sake. 

He crept out before Shane got back and took a cab back to his own apartment, only leaving a text telling Shane where he’d gone, and thanking him for letting him stay the night. He didn’t want to face his friend in the light of day, not after he’d been spooked in his own fucking apartment and immediately gone scuttling to him with his tail between his legs.

_It’s cool, man. We were both pretty wasted._

_You could have joined us for breakfast, Finn doesn’t mind._

_I desperately need to shower,_ Ryan replied, _but thanks. See you Monday._

He left his phone on the seat beside him and ignored it, but if you’d asked him why he felt the need he couldn’t have told you. Maybe it was the way Shane had hugged him last night. Maybe he was just being a dick. 

 

When he arrived at work that Monday, he’d paused in the parking lot, inexplicably – he’d just gotten a sense that something was coming, and he’d want to see it. Sure enough, a white car rolled in to the lot; a convertible, with the roof down, and a familiarly messy head in the driver’s seat. 

“You – Shane?!”

“It’s me, baby!” The driver called, and Shane unfolded his weird limbs from the car. 

“What the – when did you get a car?”

“Yesterday,” He slammed the door shut and pulled his sunglasses off his face in a way that he surely thought was unbelievably cool. “Just felt like it was time, ya know?”

“I – I don’t know. A convertible?” 

“It’s cool!” Shane gestured wildly. “I’m cool! I need a cool car!”

Ryan spluttered, totally lost for words. Shane was wearing a baseball jacket. He’d never seen Shane wear anything even remotely sports-related, unless Converse counted. It was a surprisingly good look on him; Ryan’s attention was drawn once again to the slight asymmetry of his shoulders. 

“We going in, or what?” Shane was looking at him weird, like he was relishing Ryan’s confusion – it wouldn’t be the first time Shane had enjoyed Ryan being uncomfortable, but he wasn’t usually so open about it. 

“Yeah, sure…” Ryan began to follow his friend in, and then stopped. “Are – are you possessed?!”

“For the love of God, Ryan-”

“I think you’re possessed!” Ryan pointed at Shane, finger trembling. 

“I am not _possessed,_ I just bought a car.”

“I’m calling Father Thomas right the fuck now,” Ryan couldn’t hold his straight face anymore, and he began to wheeze just as Shane rolled his eyes hard enough to lose his fucking contacts in the back of his head. 

“You are a nonsensical excuse of a human being,” Shane muttered, and he went inside, leaving Ryan outside to ponder on that remark. Maybe he was a little bit right. There was randomly buying a convertible (which couldn’t scream “I have a small penis” anymore than if Shane had been trying to prank Ryan), and there was actively believing that you were being haunted. Was he really any worse?

He couldn’t start thinking Shane was possessed, because then he would really have gone off the deep end, but fuck, this was all too much for one weekend. Too much. He looked across the desk at his co-host, who was peering at his computer screen like an eighty-year old man. That was pretty typical Shane, but he couldn’t not notice the damn baseball jacket. 

He spent the entire day in a fug, the yellow post it notes blaring at him in a reminder of all the stuff he was ignoring in favour of spinning a wild conspiracy involving a demon latching on to his co-host and creeping him out whilst he slept at night. Maybe he should write some of that – that fanfiction stuff that people did. This was worthy of a fanfiction. Not that he’d ever read fanfiction. 

He bantered with Shane over their mugs of coffee almost on autopilot. The easy push and pull of “you’re a paranoid li’l bug, aren’t ya” and “shut up Shane” was soothing, in a way.

“I’m still calling Father Thomas about getting you an exorcism,” He warned Shane as they were packing away their things. 

“Demons aren’t real, Ryan,” Shane made a show of yawning, weary of all the times they’d had this conversation. “Ghosts aren’t real. Nothing is real!”

Ryan went to insult him, but the last comment gave him pause. “Feeling – feeling a little existential today, big guy?”

“I’m always feeling a little existential,” Shane shrugged, “but I still don’t believe in ghosts, so don’t go getting your little hopes up.”

“Do you have to describe everything associated with me as little? I’m average height,” Ryan answered, automatically, but he stared at Shane. Something about this conversation was discomfiting him, and he didn’t know if it was the slipping look of nonchalance on Shane’s face, or the odd comments. 

“See ya later, Smalls.” Shane escaped before Ryan could get any more uneasy about the direction the conversation was taking. It wasn’t a good sign.

Later, he faced down his apartment door again. 

“Alright, you spooky fuck,” He muttered. “You are not driving me out of my own home again,” and he practically kicked the door open. His apartment looked exactly the same as always, the dying rays of sun from the window casting long shadows over the old coffee cups on the table. There was still that sense that the place was too empty; not so much a presence as the lack of one. 

He hauled his laptop out of his bag, and then the spirit box. He set up his phone recording himself on the sofa. He sat and stared at it for a long time, before finally convincing his hand to reach out and press the switch on the side. Immediately the horrific buzzing seemed to fill the entire room, making him wince. It settled into its now-familiar rhythm, and he finally found the courage to speak.

“Is there anything in here with me?” 

Nothing; just the skipping static drilling into his brain. It had gone dark outside at this point, but he hadn’t actually switched the lights on, because apparently he was a masochist.

“Any spirits that came back with me from Mission? Or anywhere else?”

There was a sudden skip, and then a garbled whirring from the box, and Ryan shielded himself with the nearest cushion. 

“Hello?”

The spirit box skipped again, and he heard a distinct voice say _“get out”_ – a male voice, low and droning, but definitely there. 

“Fuck!” He switched it off immediately and leapt to his feet, pacing back and forth wringing his hands. What the hell was he going to do? He was being fucking haunted – fuck, what if it wanted to hurt him? Fuck, _fuck-_

His phone buzzed, making him jump out of his skin, and he fumbled to answer it. 

“Ryyyyyyyyyyyyyan!” Shane’s voice echoed down the line, and Ryan almost fell over with relief. 

“Hi, Shane…wait, what’s up?” As his sense began to return, he wondered what his friend could want on a Monday night. 

“I just – shhh, Steve – I just wanted to hear your voice, bud,” Shane said conversationally, and Ryan realised there was music and voices in the background of the call.

“Are you drunk, dude?”

“Nooooooo…no, I’m _fine_ …just had a, a couple beers…” Shane slurred. 

“It’s Monday night,” Ryan said, forgetting all about his ghost troubles. He wandered over to the door and flicked the light on, flooding the room with harsh yellow light. 

“Time is an illusion, short-stop.” Shane said. “I can get wasted any night of the week, it’s all meaningless.” 

“Whatever, dude, you’re gonna regret it at work tomorrow,” Ryan said.

“Anyway, I gotta say, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t say it on Saturday night, and I regret _that_ , that you’re my best friend, man.” Shane rambled. “Like, the best friend I’ve _ever_ had. Of all time.” For someone who didn't really say all that much when he was sober, Shane was an very verbose drunk. 

“Uhhh…thanks, Shane.” Ryan stammered. “You – you’re my best friend too.”

“You know, Buzzfeed is pretty, uh, big on defeating gender roles and toxic masculinity-” the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ was absolutely mangled, but Ryan got the point, “- and I just feel like, you know, I love you? And guys should be able to say that to one another, but society says they can’t and honestly that’s _whack_ -”

Ryan ignored everything Shane said after that, because hearing the words “I love you” come out of his best friend’s mouth had ignited a fierce confusion in him – if he was a more romantic person, he might have said his heart skipped a beat, but that was ridiculous because Shane was right, guys should be able to say “I love you” to one another…in an _entirely platonic_ way, because that’s all Ryan’s feelings for Shane were. 

“Yeah, I agree, big guy,” He said, interrupting Shane’s drunk tirade. “Look, I’m kinda…glad you called. I’ve been having a rough night.”

“What’s up?” Shane asked immediately. “Is it the haunting?”

“Yeah,” Ryan sighed. “I just – fuck, I’m just so freaked out all the time. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” 

“I’m coming over,” Shane said immediately, and Ryan was so fucking relieved that he didn’t even have to articulate it aloud; Shane just knew what he needed him to do, whether they were hunting ghosts in an abandoned hospital or just two dudes in LA. When it came down to it, Shane was his best friend. 

Shane hung up immediately, and later there was a knock at Ryan’s door. Shane was there, still wearing that fucking baseball jacket. Ryan wanted to pull it off him; it wasn’t right. 

“Heyyyyy Ryan Bergara,” Shane said, and wow was he wasted. The guy could barely see straight. 

“Hey, big guy,” Ryan said warily, stepping aside and letting Shane lurch into his apartment. “You doing okay?” Shane had never actually set foot in his home before; it was an odd feeling, seeing Shane in the context of his apartment. 

“I am A-OK!” Shane exclaimed, flopping down on Ryan’s couch like a weird amalgamation of noodles. “What’s this I hear about some ghosts? They – they ghosting around here?”

Despite his concern, Ryan began to snicker. “I don’t know, dude, I – felt weird, so I used the spirit box, and I swear…I heard a voice telling me to get out.”

“Ryan,” Shane groaned, putting both hands over his face. “Come on,”

“No! You don’t get to do this!” Ryan exclaimed, scrabbling in his jeans. “Because I filmed it! So I could show you!”

“Let’s get into the _theories_ ,” Shane mumbled, in a poor approximation of Ryan’s voice. Ryan ignored him, and brought up the video clip of himself watching the spirit box. He skipped the footage of him just staring at it – Shane didn’t need to see any of that – and they watched Ryan talking to the radio box. Shane scooched closer and closer until one of his weirdly long thighs was pressed up against Ryan’s. 

“Ryan…” Shane sighed, handing him back the phone. “There was – there’s nothing fucking there. It’s the fucking radio!” 

“Please, Shane,” Ryan begged, hating how desperate he sounded. “There is something in here with me, and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it.”

“Look, Ryan.” Shane said, clearly building up to a bigger point. “I am drunk enough to let myself show a li’l – _hic_ – a little vulnerability tonight, and you are my best friend. But there are no ghosts in here. There are no ghosts anywhere. You’re imagining it, because you’re paranoid and delusional.”

“What the hell happened to ‘I love you’?” Ryan asked, half joking and half hurt, but Shane was looking - _looking_ at him in that kind of curious, scrutinising way that made Ryan look down at his lap with burning cheeks. “Maybe I am making it all up, but _fuck,_ man, I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind-”

He felt a hand on the back of his neck, and when he looked up Shane had swayed close enough for Ryan to count individual eyelashes. Shane pressed his lips to his – achingly gentle, large hands dancing over his shoulders - and he froze. Shane felt it, and pulled away, face flaming bright red.

“Shit – I’m sorry, dude, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here-”

“It’s cool, it’s fine,” Ryan protested, carefully avoiding his eyes. “You – you’re just drunk, right?”

Shane stayed quiet for a long time, staring at his lap. “Yeah. I’m just drunk. I think I better – I should go.”

Ryan desperately wanted to ask him to stay, to not leave him alone in this place for another fucking second but he couldn’t convince his mouth to articulate these feelings, or even articulate anything for as long as they could remember what it felt like to _kiss Shane-_

“Bye,” Shane said, and he’d escaped out the door before Ryan could even ask him if he was okay to get home on his own. He really hoped Shane wasn’t found dead in an alleyway somewhere, because Ryan would definitely feel responsible for that. 

He didn’t get any more sleep that night than he had any night for the last week, but at least he didn’t hear any more ghosts – instead, he stared at the ceiling and wondered if his friend really was possessed, and if he would be disappointed if it was a demon that made him kiss him. That would be a stupid thing to be disappointed over, right?

 

Shane arrived late at work on Tuesday morning, the roof of his new convertible pulled up and a pair of sunglasses jammed firmly on his face. He merely grunted at Ryan in greeting, flopping down on his chair with a sigh. 

“Hey, big guy,” Ryan said, watching Shane for any hint that he had thought about last night as much as Ryan had. “Not, uh, looking so hot today.”

“Yeahhh, I thought it would be a good idea to go out last night,” Shane mumbled. “It was not. I don’t even remember half of it.”

Oh. Ryan felt a swooping in his stomach that was maybe nine tenths relief and one tenth something else. He wouldn’t ever have to talk about the kiss. “You don’t remember?”

“Yeah…why? Did I do something?” Shane was watching him with apprehension. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

“You uh…you called me.” Ryan said, watching his friend’s face fall. “And you told me you thought ghosts were real.”

The tension was broken, thank fuck, and Shane put his head in his hands even as Ryan snickered. “You’re not funny, Bergara. For real, did I phone you?” He searched through his call history with bleary eyes. “Shit.”

“It was cool, you just, like, told me you loved me,” Ryan swallowed, and tried desperately not to look uncomfortable. Shane was staring at him with hollow eyes. 

“I guess that’s fine then,” He mumbled, and jammed his headphones on in a way that clearly said he wasn’t interested in conversation. And that suited Ryan just fine, because he was too busy freaking out to make any conversation with Shane Madej.

“Wait, I – I told you I loved you?” Shane had torn the headphones off and was watching Ryan like he was about to grow a second head. What had him so spooked?

“Yeah,” Ryan stammered, caught in Shane’s gaze like a deer in the headlights. “You, uh, told me I was your best friend, and you ranted about like, toxic masculinity for a while.”

“So, it was…platonic.” Shane asked, hands clenched on the arms of his chair to the point of turning white.

“Of course it was, dude.” Ryan said. “What else would it have been?” He laughed nervously – fuck, he was being too obvious – and swung back to his computer before Shane could catch how uneasy he was. 

“Yeah…what else…” Shane muttered, not looking away. “Well, could have been a lot worse. I could have called Jen.”

“You know she would have never let you live it down,” Ryan joked. “You’re lucky I’m such an easy-going guy.”

“Ryan, we both know that you are the least easy-going person in the history of going easy,” Shane scoffed. “I’ve never met anyone who needed to chill more.” Ryan shuffled over, slowly, and then kicked the back of his chair before shuffling away again quickly. 

They laughed, but there was still something lingering in the air between them, and Ryan wondered if Shane suspected that there was something Ryan wasn’t telling him. Something that occurred to him quite regularly was that, whilst he was a god-awful liar who would definitely go to jail if ever framed for murder, he had no idea if Shane ever lied to him. Everything Shane said was in the same dry tone, no matter how ridiculous it was. So as far as Ryan was concerned, Shane could tell him anything about himself and as long as it wasn’t obviously horse-shit Ryan would probably believe it. 

So maybe that was why he was so fucking afraid of what had happened between them last night; Shane was such an enigma to him that for all he knew, he might have just been wasted enough to think kissing a (male) friend was a good idea. 

It didn’t matter. He was wasting mental resources by thinking about it, because Shane didn’t even remember it, and they would never, ever have to discuss it. 

He thought Shane noticed how not talkative he was, because the taller man gave him a few odd looks throughout the day, but maybe those were just hungover looks. And Ryan really didn’t feel like talking to anyone when he could still remember feeling their hands on the back of his neck, whether it was Shane or not. 

Fuck, he was losing his mind! That must be it! He had scared himself one too many times and it had finally pushed him off the cliff edge into Crazytown.

“Hey, what’s up with DB Cooper over there,” Jen’s voice echoed in his ear, shocking him out of his little gay panic. She gestured to Shane, whose sunglasses were slipping off his long nose as his head drooped. It was oddly endearing. 

“He got a little rowdy last night,” Ryan said, low enough that Shane couldn’t hear him. “Hey, have you noticed him acting…strangely, at all?”

“Uhh, no?” Jen shrugged, and made that face she made. You know, that face. “Why, have you?”

“I don’t know. He bought a car at the weekend. A convertible.”

“I guess that’s odd? I dunno, Ry, you know him much better than I do.” Jen clapped him on the shoulder and went on her way, leaving Ryan floundering. 

Shane gained a little colour as the day went on – not that Ryan was watching him – but he retained that hollow-eyed look, like he was staring straight through his computer screen and into the void. 

Ryan brought him a cup of coffee after lunch, because he still looked pretty sick, and Ryan felt sorry for him. Shane accepted it with a soft smile that only had a touch of nausea, and Ryan couldn’t resist smiling back. He couldn’t stop thinking about those lips. 

The next day, Shane didn’t show up for work at all, and when Ryan phoned him there was the sound of wind in the background. 

“Dude, where the fuck are you?” 

“So, uhhhhhh,” Shane hedged, “I have pulled a sick day, and I’m going to Disneyland.”

“Disneyland?!” Ryan squawked, loud enough that people looked over from their desks.

“Will you – fucking keep it down!” Shane hissed. “I am lying to our employers!”

“For fuck’s sake, man,” Ryan pulled in close to his desk to hide his face behind his computer, and glanced around to make sure no one was watching. “Disneyland?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, astonishingly nonchalant for someone who had blown off work. “I’ve never been, you know? I’ve lived in California for, what, three years, and I have never been to Disneyland!”

“That’s, uhhh-” Ryan, who had visited Disneyland an average of twice a year for his entire life, and would go every weekend if he had the money, was lost for words. “You couldn’t wait for Saturday?”

“I’m seizing the day, baby!” Shane replied. “Why wait? We could die at any time!” 

“What the actual fuck-” Ryan muttered. “Look, I’ll – I’ll phone you later, you shouldn’t be on your phone if you’re driving.”

“I’m not actually going anywhere, I’m stuck in traffic,” Shane said. “But I guess you’re right. See you tomorrow, bud.”

Ryan dropped the phone and stared at the blank screen. The office was bustling around him like normal, with Shane’s empty seat screaming at him in his peripheral vision. He realised that he really didn’t talk to many other people at work apart from Shane. 

It was stupid to think that Shane was possessed, right? It was just a car, and a jacket, and a kiss, and now blowing off work – just things that people did sometimes. 

And what about the weird…existentialism? _Time is an illusion, nothing is real, we could all die at any time_ – was this a Shane thing that he just hadn’t noticed before? For someone he called his best friend, he didn’t know much about him – where he’d gone to college, whether he got along with his parents, if he liked men. The last one had been on his mind for a while, unsurprisingly. This was stupid. People could do weird things sometimes – that was just human, not even remotely supernatural. 

He typed "is my best friend possessed" into the search bar, and then gave himself a mental slap - he was being irrational. This wasn't a matter for Google.

But it was too much of a coincidence, with the weird happenings in his apartment, and Irrational Ryan had already taken over. That evening he went and got holy water from the Catholic church near his apartment, and he clutched the bottle to his chest as he lay awake that night. At around 2am, he realised he _missed_ Shane; his almost suicidal irreverence was enough to keep him away from the edge in some of the horrifying places they’d visited. Here, alone in his apartment, the fear stopped being fun and instead seeped into every aspect of his existence – the sweat gathering on his palms, the prickling on the back of his neck, his heart thundering in his ears. He needed Shane to stay grounded. He missed Shane. But then again, it was 2am and he was _severely_ sleep-deprived. You could have told him that baseball caps were made from the skin of baseball players and he would have believed it; missing Shane wasn’t a stretch. Even if he was a shitlord. 

When Shane returned the next day, Ryan was waiting for him by his desk. At this point in his gradual descent into madness, the grey bags under his eyes were basically permanent. 

“Hey there,” Shane greeted him. “You’re looking…I’m struggling to describe how you’re looking, but I know I don’t like it. That’s a bad look.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ryan dismissed. “How was your day yesterday?”

“Pretty awful,” Shane said, purposely raising his voice for the whole office to hear. “I was SO ILL. I spent all day IN BED. It was TERRIBLE.”

“Yikes,” Ryan said. “Here, I brought you coffee.”

“Oh, thanks, dude,” Shane said, dropping his shit and taking the mug from him eagerly. Ryan watched him carefully as he sipped at it, and Shane noticed. “You’re still making that face. The bad one.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ryan said again, and Shane’s face fell. 

“There’s holy water in this, isn’t there?” He put the mug down with a disappointed sigh.

“What the – why is that the first conclusion you jump to?!” Ryan demanded. 

“Do you deny that you made me coffee with holy water?” Shane asked pointedly, his hands on his hips like – some weird-ass teacher. Who taught aliens. Because he himself was an alien. 

“….there is holy water in the coffee.” Ryan admitted, after a long pause. “A little.”

“Ryan, why?” Shane sighed. “Just because I skipped work?” The last bit was hushed. 

“You’ve been acting weird! If you suddenly, like – got out an apple and started exploding it with your bare hands, I wouldn’t be surprised!” Shane rolled his eyes, and made an example of ignoring him. Ryan spent most of the morning watching Shane, even though another episode of Unsolved was due in two days, and he was so fucking behind it was getting ridiculous. 

Shane still finished the coffee, but every time he took a sip he gave Ryan a pointed look. 

“I’m worried about you, you know,” He said, conversationally. “You seem to be suffering from some…paranoid delusions.” 

“I’m more worried about you,” Ryan said. “I’m still not convinced that you’re not possessed. Are you having a mid-life crisis? Is that what this is?"

Shane didn’t bite; just smiled softly. “You don’t need to worry about me, Ryan. I’m all good. Mayor of Alright-town over here.”

“What am I mayor of?” Ryan asked, letting the demon thing drop. The conversation had been taken in a weird direction, and he was happy to avoid it. 

“Cowardsville.”

“Wow, harsh?” He wheezed, turning back to whatever he’d been working on – he couldn’t even remember. Unsolved. The thing he’d spent months convincing his bosses to greenlight. His passion project. That thing. He’d forgotten about it, just because Shane had worn a baseball jacket to work. 

Ryan hotfooted it out of the office as early as he could justify, ignoring a confused look from Shane. On his way back, he picked up some sage and various candles, and apparently blacked out for a little while, because next thing he knew he’d set up a ring of candles in his living room and there was the smell of burning sage in the air. At some point, Shane had texted him, but he ignored it in favour of stamping the haunting out once and for all. 

“Okay, demons.” He said, determinedly. “This ends tonight. I’ve got enough shit to worry about.”

He was busy smudging, the way Daysha told him to, fluttering round his apartment like some weird, sage fairy, when there was a knock at the door. He dropped the sage and immediately yelped, stamping out the burning herbs. He picked his way around the candles and opened the door to reveal Shane, looking hungover and remarkably sheepish. 

“Hey, did you get my text?” He said, and saw all the candles burning behind him. “What the everlasting fuck is going on in there, Ry?”

Ryan didn’t know how to explain it, really, so when the words “cleansing ritual” escaped his mouth it surprised even him. 

“Is this still – the fucking ghosts?” Shane demanded, pushing past him and into the apartment. “Ryan, come on, this has got to stop!”

“Listen, Drunk Dial,” Ryan said heatedly. “This is my own home, and no one fucking invited you here, so if I feel like performing rituals on it in my own time that’s nobody’s business.”

Shane held his hands up, chastised. “I’m sorry, man, I’m just – hey, where’s Helen?”

And there it was. Finally. That question Ryan had hoped no one would ever fucking ask him again, the one Shane had apparently not noticed when he was in here the night previous. He swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat.

“She moved out,” He croaked, and Shane sighed.

“Shit, Ry,” He mutters. “I’m…I’m sorry, dude. That really sucks.” 

“Yeah,” Ryan said, and sat down heavily on the couch, his knees suddenly unwilling to take his weight. “Yeah, it really does.”

“Did she-”

“She dumped me,” Ryan said, and suddenly it was all coming out, every last bit involuntary, because if things had gone to plan Shane would never have noticed how alone and pathetic Ryan was. “She said I was too – _fuck_ – too focused on my career. I never had any time for her. So, she left. I still, I still fucking see her sometimes, getting groceries, but she won’t even look at me.”

“Is that where all this haunting stuff is coming from? When did she move out?” Shane asked, like he was a – a fucking child or something. 

“No, dude. I swear, the two things are unrelated…it was three weeks ago.”

“Ryan,” Shane said, and his face was achingly soft. Ryan hated it; Shane wasn’t anything other than mocking, or facetious, or triumphant, and that’s all Ryan ever needed from him; he didn’t need his pity or concern or anything. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ryan said, and he knew he was quibbling unnecessarily but fuck he did not want to have this conversation. 

“I know,” Shane said softly, and when it came down to it Shane was his best friend. Ryan was suddenly hyperaware of how close Shane was sitting, just as he’d done on Monday night, and without instruction his eyes flicked down to his lips. He swayed closer, eyes starting to close-

And Shane moved away, gently disentangling Ryan’s hands from his shirt - when had _that_ happened? - and looking away in a manner that was distinctly disappointed. 

“What – what’s wrong?” Ryan gulped, lips still tingling almost uncomfortably. 

“Ryan…” Shane muttered. “I’m not – you’re hurt. I get it.” 

“You – what?” Ryan felt dazed, almost a little delirious; he couldn’t stop staring at Shane’s lips. 

“Ryan, listen,” Shane said, more urgently. “You’re not acting like yourself.”

“What, trying to cleanse my apartment of demons isn’t myself?” Ryan mumbled, and even wheezed a little at his own joke. What the fuck was wrong with him?

“You know what I mean,” Shane said, frustrated. “You don’t actually want – this,” He gestured around wildly, “with me! You’re upset, and, and apparently, you’ve gone insane!”

“No – Shane-” Ryan was starting to come back to his senses now, and he was mad. “Come on. I’m a grown man. I know what I want.”

“I don’t think you do, okay?” Shane held up his hands defensively. “All this talk about hauntings?! Demons? Dude, you thought I was possessed!”

“Okay, hold up here a second,” Ryan interrupted, trying desperately to drown out the sound of nails hammering into his coffin. “If we’re talking about people not acting like themselves, what about you, huh? Getting drunk on a Monday night? Buying a fucking convertible? Kissing me?!” 

“I don’t have to justify myself to you,” Shane waved him away. “And you kissed me!”

“No,” Ryan said, feeling something awful coming but ignoring it. “You kissed me, on Monday night. You didn’t even remember coming here.” He knew that that was the awful thing before it had even left his mouth, but it was too fucking late. And Shane was staring at him with hollow eyes, mouth hanging open. 

“I…why the fuck did you not tell me, Ryan?” He asked. “Why would you keep that from me?!”

“I don’t know,” Ryan sighed, burying his head in his hands. “I didn’t want it to be awkward. You’re my best fucking friend. I wasn’t sure if I could ruin it over - one drunk night. I mean, it was a mistake, right?” 

Shane said nothing, staring into the blank space between the coffee table and the television with a grim twist to his mouth. Eventually he got to his feet on creaking knees, and said “I have to go,” and left. Ryan said nothing, couldn’t even look him in the eye he was so ashamed of himself. He had fucked everything up, exactly like he’d done with Helen. 

He pulled out a bottle of tequila that he’d been given for some birthday or something – actually, he thought it was Helen’s, which was a supreme irony – and proceeded to get royally shitfaced. At some point, he pulled out his phone and stared at Shane’s number for what felt like six hours, but he wasn’t going to do anything about it. _Stupid, pathetic, cowardly._

There was the text Shane had sent earlier – _you okay? Are the ghosts still bugging ya?_

Instead, he called Helen, because tonight was a night for awful decisions, and when she answered he hung up almost immediately. She didn’t try to call him back. 

The next day dawned bright and cheery, over Ryan, passed out on the floor beside his couch. He’d started out on the couch, of course, but at some point he’d fallen off the couch. Which was why he was on the floor. His head was pounding, but he was pretty used to that shit at this point – he’d had a headache since last Friday, either from sleep-deprivation or alcohol. 

He had no fucking clue how he was going to show his face at work that day. 

He ended up phoning in sick – the mayor of Cowardsville, everybody – and lying on his couch staring at his computer with bleary eyes. He had to finish this week’s Unsolved episode, because he’d been neglecting all week in favour of his fucking paranoia, and wasn’t that just a first-class way to emotionally torture himself?

Just Shane’s face on the video, and his stupid voice pouring tinnily through the speakers, was enough to make his gut clench. He saw himself – September Ryan, in all his innocence – light up at something ridiculous Shane said, and wondered how long Shane had been making him smile like that before Ryan ever noticed it. 

Oh God, he really had ruined it all. This was why people didn’t talk about feelings. They were stupid. The weekend dragged like no weekend ever had in the history of weekends, with Ryan alternating between lying face down on the sofa trying to sleep, lying face up on his bed failing to sleep, or watching Shane in old episodes of Unsolved. He definitely didn't have to stifle tears whenever Screen-Shane laughed at something he'd said, or offered to go first into a scary place, or told him it was okay. What a fucking life he led. 

 

Coming into work on the Monday morning, he was waylaid by Jen almost immediately. 

“You remember how you told me Shane had been acting weird last week?” She asked, grabbing him urgently by the shoulders. 

“Uhhh, yeah?” Ryan said, desperately hoping that the conversation wasn’t going to take the turn he thought it would.

“Well, he’s not here this morning, and apparently he’s quit?” Jen told him.

“What the fuck?!” Ryan yelled, loud enough to make everyone look up from their computers or coffee cups. 

“He texted Sara over the weekend, and told her he’d handed in his notice,” Jen said, squeezing his arms a little harder than Ryan could tolerate. “Do you know what happened?”

“Mmm, nope, nothing to do with me,” Ryan said, purposely avoiding eye contact. “I have to go. Right now.”

He hotfooted it to Shane’s apartment, without even bothering to fetch his car – it was morning in LA, it would take him half an hour to go two blocks – and slammed his fist down on the buzzer.

“Who’s there?” Shane’s voice issued blearily from the speakers, and even though Ryan was indescribably angry it made his chest flutter.

“It’s me,” He said through gritted teeth.

“Ryan?”

“Yeah, asshole. Let me up.”

“I’m busy-” Shane hedged, voice already moving away, but Ryan slammed his fist on the intercom again. 

“No, we need to have a conversation.” He said. “You’re just gonna walk away from Unsolved? After all this fucking work we’ve done?”

“It’s your show,” Shane’s voice whined through the speaker. “I think you’ll survive. Get Quinta to co-host, people liked her.”

“You know people watch it for both of us!” Ryan spat. “We have _chemistry!_ Was all of this for – _fuck_ – nothing?” He’d slammed his fist on the wall beside the buzzer instead of the buzzer itself, and it hurt like a motherfucker. 

“I can’t do it anymore,” The voice coming from the speaker was weary, low and droning. “I can’t hang out with you all day and pretend like we’re just friends.  
”  
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ryan demanded. “We are just friends!”

A hollow laugh came buzzing through. “I haven’t looked at you as just a friend for a long time, Ryan. I figured you’d worked it out by now.”

He stood there for a long time, staring at the dirty steel of the intercom, noticing the scuff marks on the concrete wall. When it came down to it, Shane was his best friend. He’d been his best friend for two years. Surely he didn’t-

“I’ve ruined everything,” Shane’s voice was heavy with misery. “I knew this would happen. You’ve probably left, and I’m just a moron talking through a microphone to fucking empty air-”

But it was Ryan who had ruined everything, with his weird fixations and his paranoia and his inexplicable attraction to this tall weirdo. 

“I’m still here,” He said quietly. “Listen. I don’t – we’ve established over several ghost-hunting trips that I don’t know shit, yeah? I don’t know shit. So, maybe I was just being – oblivious, or just ignoring everything – I don’t know. But we’re not just friends. I – I rely on you for a lot of things, Shane. You calm me down, when I’m being ridiculous. You make me feel – better, I guess.” Deep breath, through the nose, and out again. “I need you.”

There it was, finally, out in the open like a – moose. Just a big-ass truth moose roaming around. God, he was so sleep-deprived. He waited for the intercom’s response with freezing lungs, the longest 98 seconds of his life. 

Finally, the speaker chirped and the door to his left clicked open.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo sorry it took me a week to write 2000 words?? I have no excuses.

Shane was waiting for him in the doorway of his apartment, wearing a worn t-shirt and sweatpants, his clunky, black-rimmed glasses framing tired eyes. He looked vulnerable, Ryan realised, and it wasn’t a look he’d seen on him before. He hadn't known what vulnerable Shane looked like. 

“Hey there, big guy.” Ryan greeted him, hoping to dispel some of the tension roiling beneath the look on his face. The corridor seemed to stretch, an impassable walk between him and Shane, who only grimaced at the nickname and disappeared back into his apartment, leaving the door open for Ryan to follow. 

Shane’s apartment was smaller than his – he hadn’t gotten a good look last time he was here, due to being quite hungover – and oddly lacking in personal touches like Ryan’s had. No photographs on the walls, or any of the knick-knacks one acquired from bad birthday presents. Bare walls. 

Shane was sitting at his kitchen table, staring into space. Ryan took a seat opposite, silently, and waited for the taller man to say something. When neither spoke, he realised the ball was in his court.

“Shane,” He started, uncomfortably. “You gonna tell me what’s been going on?”

Shane smiled, but there was little mirth in it. Ryan never wanted to see him smile like that again. “Going on with what?”

“Everything. The car. The drinking. The, uh…the kissing.” Ryan’s fingers tapped anxiously on the table. “You’ve been acting weird.”

“I know,” Shane said, finally letting his face soften just a little. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try, Shane,” Ryan said, trying really fucking hard not to let his frustration slip through. “Just tell me why you’re being…like this.”

“I don’t know why I’m being _like this,”_ Shane scoffed, throwing a hand in the air. Jesus, this conversation was the equivalent of pulling teeth. He could really do with having a conversation with Drunk-Shane right now; at least that fucker had shit to say. Ryan tried to hide his clenched hand beneath the table. He’d done his bit, he’d put himself out there, and now it was Shane’s go. 

They sat there in silence, until eventually Shane gave in and got to his feet on creaking knees, scuffling around in his cupboards until he produced two mugs and the coffee. “I…might have feelings for you.” He said to the bottom of the mug. “Just a little bit.” He held up a finger and thumb to indicate, and then gave an aborted wheeze at his attempt at levity. The kitchen was too small to hold the vast canyon of space that Ryan could feel opening up between them, unless he did something to stop it. 

“You’ve never said anything about it before.” Ryan said.

“You had a girlfriend. You were straight.” Shane’s mouth twisted bitterly. “I thought I could…just be fine. Just be your friend. But it wasn’t enough, and it was driving me a little crazy.” 

“You can say that again,” Ryan snorted, and then regretted it when Shane swung around to look at him with baleful eyes. He needed a shave; stubble poking through a too-pale jaw. The coffee was left, forgotten, on the countertop. “So, you bought a car? And a baseball jacket?”

“My life is going nowhere,” Shane muttered. “I’m helplessly into a straight dude, my job is making videos about fucking – _shower sex_ – and I’m just…stuck. I’m stuck in a, a rut. My life-tyres are spinning.”

Ryan’s guts were filling up with ice. This was Shane telling him he didn’t want to work together anymore, didn’t want to do Unsolved anymore, didn’t want to even see him. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and willed his mouth to say something, anything. But the words didn’t come, and as they sat there he could feel his opportunity slipping away like a body down a river. God, this was such a fucking car crash. 

“I really, genuinely thought you were possessed,” His mouth said of its own accord, just for the sake of breaking the goddamn silence.

“For the _love of God,_ Ryan, if you say the word possessed again, I’ll-” Shane slammed his fist on the countertop, and Ryan jumped, and suddenly Shane was giggling almost maniacally, collapsing back into his chair. Ryan giggled too, infected by Shane’s laugh, and together they giggled in Shane’s tiny, grey kitchen. Eventually, the laugher died, and Ryan looked at Shane with soft eyes.

“Will you come back and do Unsolved?” Ryan asked, staring at his clenched fists on the kitchen table.

“Yeah,” He breathed, looking down at his lap. 

“Thank God,” Ryan sighed, letting his head drop onto the table. “I was so afraid there for a minute, man, you have no fucking idea.”

“I could do with a drink,” Shane muttered, and Ryan wheezed. 

“It’s not even eleven,” He said, and Shane grinned wryly. “Fuck, I need to get back to work. You – you’re definitely going to come back?”

“Yeah, Ry,” Shane said, staring at him with those unfathomably dark eyes. “I’ll come back. For you.”

“I’ll – I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” He stammered. “When you get back?”

“Tomorrow,” Shane said, though his mouth had turned hard and straight, and Ryan didn’t like that, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it. 

Shane came back, as a true man of his word – Ryan wondered what he had to say, to convince the Buzzfeed big-shots to take him back. Maybe they just welcomed him in with open arms. He was half of Unsolved’s success, after all. 

When he walked into the office and saw Ryan sitting at his desk – where he’d sat every day for two fucking years – his body gave this weird aborted jolt, making his limbs flail even more awkwardly than usual. Then he gave Ryan a little wave and a close-lipped smile, dumped his bag on his chair, and fucked off to talk to someone else for the entire morning.

When lunchtime rolled around, Ryan was just turning to grab his stuff and head out, when a taco landed in front of him. 

“I brought you lunch,” Shane said, very nonchalantly standing behind him.

“Thanks, man,” Ryan said, staring at the taco like Shane had dumped a human head on his desk. _Fucking – say something, you moron!_ His brain screamed. He reached back and grabbed Shane’s wrist, just in time.

“Shane,” he said, staring at the floor behind him. He could say it, but he couldn’t make eye-contact whilst he did it; that was his compromise. “Thanks for coming back. You – you’re my best friend.”

He couldn’t see his reaction, but after several agonising seconds Shane swallowed and said, “it’s nothing, Ry.” Then he walked away. 

_You fucked that one up,_ the voice in Ryan’s head said, but he couldn’t bring himself to move out his chair. Shane was here for him, he stayed for him, he’d said as much himself – he didn’t want to be here. 

That night, Ryan got more sage and faced down the living room for what had to be the final time. Uninterrupted by Shanes, he smudged the entire flat, wafting smoke into every nook and cranny just to be fucking sure, ignoring the creaking whispers and the eyes on the back of his neck. He finally came to a stop in the kitchen, staring at the microwave like a gently smoking moron. He really hoped his landlord didn’t feel like walking along his corridor right then, because everything stank of smoke. 

For a moment – a single, precious moment – he felt the shadow lying over his home fade, the hairs on his arms lie flat for just a minute. Then something in the living room rattled, Ryan crouching like he was under attack, and the cabinet doors around him began to swing open, creaking like a dying man’s bones. 

“Oh, fuck!” He squawked, diving for the tiled floor and curling his hands over his ears like he was in an earthquake drill – but it didn’t drown out the creaking doors, the distant moaning, the rising whispers all around him. 

Something started pounding on his front door, and he squeaked, burying his head deeper under his arms. It didn’t stop, a constant banging that drilled into his skull.

“Leave me alone!” Ryan yelled, really unfortunately shriller than he would have liked. “I’m not – you can’t fucking scare me!” 

“Ryan?” A voice yelled back. “What’s going on? It’s me, answer your damn door!”

Ryan scrambled to his feet, the ghosts forgotten – his apartment had gone miraculously quiet with his realisation that it was Shane. 

“Dude, what’s your deal?” Shane demanded the minute he opened the door. “You – what’s that smell?” His shirt had come untucked from his belt, and his hair was sticking every which way like he’d been sleeping in a bush. Shane sometimes had an inexplicable air of “just returned from living wild in the woods for months”, and Ryan found it far more charming than he should. 

“…burning sage.” Ryan admitted.

“Dude, not this shit again-” Ryan was suddenly, inexplicably furious.

“You know, I can never tell if you’re lying to me?” He interrupted, clutching the door until his knuckles turned white. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Shane’s brow was furrowed with confusion. 

“You just – you’re the same, all the time,” Ryan said, gesturing wildly with the hand that wasn’t holding the door open. His heart was still racing, and he couldn’t seem to stop all the thoughts that had been preying on his mind for the last eight days from spilling out. “I can never tell what you’re thinking. How am I supposed to know what you want from me?”

“You can’t just-” Shane started heatedly, but Ryan cut him off again.

“I can’t be the only reason you stay with Unsolved, at Buzzfeed. You can’t just put that kind of shit on me, I can’t live with it, knowing that you’re putting yourself through a job you hate just because I’m there!”

“Ryan-”

“I put myself out there, Shane. I told you that I needed you, that I wanted you to stay. And then you just – fuck, you ignored me all fucking day! What the fuck is your deal?!” He couldn’t stop saying fuck, but there weren’t really any words adequate to express the rage percolating inside him. 

“What – what’s _my_ deal?” Shane stammered, holding his hands up like Ryan was threatening him. “I don’t. I don’t have a _deal,_ okay, I’m just trying to get through one day without saying fuck it all and moving to fucking – Russia, yeah?”

“R-Russia?” Ryan asked, bewildered, but Shane wasn’t done.

“So, don’t accuse me of having a deal when I’m not the one who told a guy he _needed him_ and then said he was his best friend the very next day like – like nothing had changed! I wasn’t ignoring you, I was just following your lead.”

It was probably the most Ryan had heard Shane say off-camera, the furthest the mask had slipped to reveal what was truly underneath. 

“And one last thing,” Shane said, pointing a finger at him indignantly, “Your apartment is not fucking haunted, you’re just fucking insane. I’m done trying to let you down gently about it. You’re insane.”

Ryan stared at him with wide eyes, until it was too much and the dam broke and he began to giggle, leaning against the doorframe like his knees couldn’t hold him up. Shane looked at him like he was having a nervous breakdown, which he probably was, but what the hell was he going to do about it? Nothing.

“What the fuck are we doing here, big guy?” He finally choked out, wiping at his eyes. “We’re – we’re clearly not okay.”

“I don’t understand it, because you are an outrageous excuse for a human being, but I’d probably do anything for you,” Shane confessed, and Ryan spine seemed to vanish from his back, leaving him slumped over in his doorway. Slowly, all mirth gone, he stepped out into the hallway and let the door shut behind him, leaning back against it to hold him up. “And I can’t carry on with this, with you, if we’re just going to keep dancing around it,” Shane finished, quietly. “You gotta tell me what you want, Ryan. It’s not that hard.”

And Ryan wanted to protest – he’d put himself out there, he’d let himself be vulnerable, Shane was the one who couldn’t articulate what he wanted – but it all died in his throat. 

“I already said it,” He finally croaked. “I – I need you. You’re the only thing keeping me sane.” 

“I can’t just be the guy that keeps you sane, Ryan,” Shane groaned, running his hands through his hair agitatedly. “That’s not enough.”

“You’re more than that,” Ryan insisted. “I don’t know, okay? I’m fucking – I’m bad at words. But I want more. With you. I want you.” 

And Shane sighed, almost with relief, and crushed Ryan into his arms, pressing him up against the door. Ryan kissed him back, immediately, grasping for Shane’s neck and feeling every sharp angle in his collarbone, the rasp of his vaguely stubbly jaw – and wasn’t _that_ a new sensation-

Shane broke the kiss but stayed close enough that Ryan could feel his breath against his lips, foreheads resting against one another. 

“I’m gonna – gonna need like, five minutes break to have a sexuality crisis.” Ryan huffed, trying to garner a little levity from his nerves. He could feel Shane’s chest rising and falling against his own, his large hands cupping his face, achingly gentle. 

“Is this a bad idea?” Shane said in a low voice, closing his eyes. “Are – are you sure?”

“Can’t be any worse than what we were doing before,” Ryan muttered. “Yeah, I’m pretty fucking sure.”

“You’re willing to risk our entire friendship, our work, for _‘pretty fucking sure’_?” Shane smirked.

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan said, and kissed him again, fumbling the door open behind him and practically falling from the hallway into the apartment.

 

From there, things changed, but oddly stayed the same. Shane and Ryan still bickered, still insulted one another, but these days they would arrive at the office together in the morning, and leave together at night. Shane would reach over Ryan’s shoulder to point at something on a computer screen and press his face into his dark hair, just briefly. Ryan would call Shane a slut for Bigfoot, but he would grin so wide he could swallow the fucking sun whilst he did it. Nothing new, really. 

His apartment stopped feeling like a morgue, and the sun finally shone straight through the windows again. He didn’t hear any weird whisperings or felt eyes on him. Ryan was sure it was burning the sage that had fixed it, because it definitely wasn’t anything to do with his own neuroses. 

“Do you still feel stuck?” He asked Shane at one point, late at night, when things said aloud seemed to have less effect. 

“Eh,” Shane’s mouth quirked wryly. “I’m still a ghost-hunter, right? Don’t think I’ll ever escape it,” but he reached out and squeezed Ryan’s knee quickly whilst he did it.  
“You’re stuck here on earth whilst you’re waiting for the mother-ship to come back for you,” Ryan said, and Shane let out that deep belly-laugh that was mostly eyes instead of sound. 

They didn’t need to put a label on it, but if they did it would probably be something like _“I’m pretty fucking sure,”_ or _“the ghoul boys have a bond that cannot be broken,”_ or even _“I’d probably do anything for you.”_ But they didn’t need to put a label on it. When it came down to it, Shane was his best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, feedback is welcomed and appreciated, and you can find me on [tumblr](https://www.thatmademadej.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably write more of this once my brain gets its shit together
> 
> Constructive criticism is welcome, you can hit me up on my [tumblr](https://www.thatmademadej.tumblr.com). I crave external validation. Thank you for reading!


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